XCOM 2 and Breaking my New Years Resolution

One more day until alien mayhem!

The only reason to make resolutions for the New Year is to see how long it takes before you finally break them.  I'm proud to report that it took one month and one day before I officially broke my resolution.  After reading some very favorable reviews for XCOM 2, I decided that pre-ordering (with just 3 days left until release!) would be fine.  My lack of willpower is discouraging.  But, on a positive note, I can now look longingly at XCOM 2 in my Steam library and anticipate zapping some aliens in just a few days time.

What am I most excited about?  New aliens?  New weapons?  New maps?  New strategies?  Those....kind of.  I'm actually more excited about the ability to personalize my squad of ultimate badasses (that's an Aliens reference...in case you missed that....yeah).  Sometimes it's silly little parts of a game that can be exciting.  Making up fictional biographies for my future soldiers and designing them in that role is ridiculously exciting to me.

One of the things I liked best about the XCOM re-boot was that it centered on an organization that truly reflected a worldwide effort to fend off the alien threat.  It wasn't just an effort of western countries, it was truly everyone.  My squad had soldiers from all over the world--a sniper from Germany, a heavy machine-gunner from Nigeria, a Canadian medic, a Mexican shotgunner, and a Japanese mech-warrior who specialized in punching aliens in the face.  Adding in language support for the various nationalities in the game made it feel very authentic.  I liked that my German sniper responded to commands in actual German.  I'm banking on XCOM 2 continuing this theme of a united worldwide effort.

Coming up with biography stories is more challenging than I thought it would be.  I want to make up stories that are believable, but not rote.  (I fully realize that I am likely wasting my time as both of the reviews that I have read mentioned that losing soldiers is much more common than in the first game).  It's the feeling of investment in your soldiers that makes you want to re-play a mission in order to try to save everyone.  Losing those rookies isn't a big deal but when one of your longtime vets goes down....nope.

I have some ideas for my characters--an American who participated in the militia takeover of wildlife refuge (yep, reflecting current events in Oregon) and then joined the effort to resist the aliens, an ex-Mexican gangster who decided to use his street skills to cap aliens, a Chinese doctor who left a busy medical practice to become a medic, an African national (I'm not sure what African countries will be included in XCOM 2) who fought for a warlord and has sketchy motivations...there are so many possibilities.

Pre-loading became available last night and I made sure to fully load the game so I can rush home and start creating my new XCOM squad.  My lack of willpower in pre-ordering also meant that I can recruit one survivor from the original XCOM and that I get a few cosmetic items to deck out my soldiers.  I'm so excited for XCOM 2!